The one that did it…

We stream TV, that’s all we do now.  We haven’t had cable proper for years.  It can be a bit of work to get it all worked out but it makes more sense, sure we have to wait a couple of days for new shows but the plus side is there are less commercials and since the commercials we do see are the same over and over for the most part you know exactly how long between them you have to go grab a snack,  carrots lately as I am going for the whole healthy thing. 

Anyway on occasion Hulu will allow you to watch an extended commercial instead of the normal breaks in the show,  when it offers this option, which I think is fantastic, you can then watch whatever show you have chosen commercial free…

The other day J and I were about to watch Guys with Kids, we like the show it’s funny and as a dad that stays home with the baby it can be pretty cathartic.  The choice to watch an extended commercial came up, the interesting thing this time was I don’t remember it telling me what it was about, it probably did but who knows I don’t recall the normal identification of what was about to be shown coming up.  I said yes to the commercial and found it was a movie trailer.  

Now for the record. I love scary movies, suspense movies, just about anything with a zombie in it I’ll watch.  Years ago I sat in our basement when J was at a women's conference and watching Room 1408, as I watched the movie it got darker and darker outside and consequently in the house.  I thought the girls were asleep in their beds until Amberly called from the top of the stairs.  I freaked out mainly because she had the same sing song voice that the little girl voice was in the movie.  The thing is I look back at that and laugh and remember the feeling it gave me and it’s a good time a good memory…what I saw the other night just sits there and bothers me. 

The trailer was for a movie called The Purge.  As I said I normally love scary movies.  I’m the guy that  telegraphs what the bad guy is going to do or to use to carry out his killing, and will normally make some sort of snarky comment,   “oh look it’s a wood chipper, bet that gets used later.” Wow look at that someone left a perfectly good hatchet sticking out of that tree stump…”  run dude run I just saw a chain saw in that wood shed”  you get the point.  It’s almost comical, always over the top, and said implement of destruction is usually wielded by an equally over the top bad guy with some mundane name be it Jason, or Michael or Freddy. 

There are things in life that we all wish we could un see, visual pictures that evoke emotional responses.  Amberly will forever be the little girl that had an ear ache.  She knew band aids were for things that hurt so she wanted a band aid on her ear.  I’ll never forget my tear filled baby girl crying and holding the band aid to her ear, looking at me wanting to know why I wasn’t putting the band aid on her ear to make the earache go away.  It was one of those heart hurting moments when you understand that no matter how much you love them and how much you want to shield them from any and all pain, no matter how many bees you catch in the car so they don’t get stung, you can’t always make the hurt go away. That picture of Amberly in need will always be in my brain, a good thing.  Unfortunately so will the movie trailer for The Purge.

I was so disturbed by it, so put off by it, so angry that someone would make this movie.  I have never really gotten worked up over a movie.  I figure if I want to see something I will if I don’t I won’t but neither will I attempt to influence others one way or the other.  They need to work out their own things what is right and wrong.  If they are a Christ Follower it’s called working out our salvation, if not I don’t know what you would call it but I’m sure there is a correlation.  (incidentally if you’re reading and you would like to know the ins and outs to being a Christ Follower I’m more than willing to give you the details.)  This is the first time that I would actively tell someone not to see something,  Not to put it in their brains, not to watch a movie.  It was that frightening to me.

The question is why?   That’s what I’m going to be working on for the next few weeks.  An answer to why.

Fresh Air

Much has happened since my last post.  God is moving in some interesting ways in our life, and in mine in particular, we started volunteering in Powerhouse at our church, the girls have been growing much faster than I want them to, we went on vacation to Florida and did what we usually do which means we packed way more into our days there than we should have.  Typical Newell family life.  The blog has been siting here catching dust for a long while.  I thought it may be a good idea to get back to it today,  The sun is shining, it’s a pretty warm day out.  I have pulled down the plastic from the windows and thrown them open to allow some much needed fresh air throughout the house.

Ah fresh air.  Nothing cleans out a space like fresh air.  All winter long we clean, we try and catch up on the things that have to be done.  We scrub floors, and vacuum carpets, do the dishes and well you  get the idea, all the stuff that has to be done to make a house clean, many times we will even choose a cleaner that has a scent to it, a way to fake out or minds and noses, making them think that things are fresh and clean and great.  We cover up the stale air with a manufactured freshness…

Which of course brings me to the point .  Much has happened over the last five years in our lives.  There have been highs and lows, really low lows.  If you need a refresher well you know what to do for that.  Most of it is pretty much here and if it’s not well I’ll probably get around to putting things up again at some point.  The thing is a couple of years ago I really thought that something was going to happen.  I thought God was going to open this certain door and that it was going to be everything that I wanted it to be.  Ah but you see I wasn’t really there yet, too much had gone on and we were still working through the illness that almost took J away.  God was still in this process of breaking me apart and teaching me what it really means to be not just a person with a calling but a box of Lego's that are placed into his hands to be built into something best suited to the place He has for us.

I almost feel like I was in that place where I was doing all the right things, but I was using the cleaning supplies that had the fresh scent.  Still trying to mask hurts, and pains,  trying to prove to God and myself that I really believed the truth that he had spoken clearly into my heart when J was in the hospital.  I knew what he said but I really didn't KNOW what he said, maybe it’s better to say I really didn't KNOW what he meant.  I was doing all the right things, but I wasn't opening the windows and doors to let the fresh air in.  I had a manufactured freshness, doing all the things I was supposed to, saying all the things I needed to say.  Spending time reading and praying.  Going to church, blogging my thoughts.  I wasn't faking my relationship with God but I was fooling myself into thinking that I had really allowed the process to be fully implemented.

Spring cleaning is more than just a good wash down of all that is in the house.  Many times we do that during the winter, the difference with spring cleaning is the fact that suddenly the fresh outdoor air can blow through the house, taking with it the dead stale air that has been sitting there since some where October.  I needed to get to the point where the windows and doors were opened and the fresh air could get in, blowing out all the stale, manufactured fragrance, replacing it with something that is the unmistakable sureness of being in the palm of God’s hands, the realization that as I push further into him, and as I spend more time being open to whatever he has, my life will not just be one lived in that permissive area of his will but in the perfect one.

Do I know exactly what that is at this point.  I think I have an idea but as we all know our ways are not his ways and our thoughts are not his thoughts.  So I will wait and live, and move and have my being in Him, I will step back, open the windows and doors and let the freshness that only can come from God blow through my life and in so doing carry me to the place that he has set up.

Doubt?

Looking toward the time when I’m doing ministry again, something that I know is coming even if I’m not totally sure what it looks like yet, (yes I know I can do ministry in the work place and have been attempting to share my faith.)  I have really been making a conscious effort in my quiet time to note thoughts and ideas for teachings or messages, I have also been working at taking meaningful notes during Sunday mornings.  It was so surreal to hear part of the discipleship course I wrote for one of my past churches being taught Sunday, especially when it’s been over 5 years since I last taught the course, I just kept nudging J and telling her can you believe I taught that, that’s one of mine…

Anyway, I have been thinking about the concept of doubt, especially when it comes to the calling I have and the person that is responsible for my personal reservation, when I eventually check out of this life and into the next.  I wonder at people who get upset, especially Christian people, when a person offers even an inkling of doubt about God.  It’s like once a person makes a commitment to Christ they are not allowed to ever have questions, or to wonder why or how, or even if.  I think if most of us were honest, we would have to admit that there are times when we look at the whole thing, and then come up with questions.  I know there are times that I question God, the Bible, the stories in the Bible.  I look at historical documents that pre-date accepted Christian texts and find such similarities that I have to wonder who stole from who back in the pre-enlightened age of mortals.

Why is it so unforgivable to have questions, furthermore does the occasional question of the facts mean that the relationship is worthless, or that it never existed.  Is questioning ones faith, salvation, God, and historical evidence for belief right up there with the unpardonable sin?  This question has been in my mind off and on for a while now.  When I look at the way Christians selectively follow the tenants of faith, be it in loving the person that they don’t like, praying for and respecting the authority in the land, treating people of different faiths as people, not as unspiritual rubbish, because I don’t find that to be the way that God wants things to work.

I think that doubt is a part of faith.  I would go so far as to say it is essential to faith.  Blind faith is at the least silly and at the most dangerous.  Doubt is the pushing off point for faith, at least that’s what I think.

I think it’s important to note that some very important very influential founders of our faith doubted.  Everyone has heard of Thomas, the disciple who had to touch Jesus had to feel the scars in his hands and feel the rip in his side from where the spear pierced the skin and drew blood and water.

What made me come to the concept of doubt being an integral part of faith didn’t come from Thomas though it came from someone else entirely.

When we read the story of Christ there are several key players.  Mary and Joseph, the disciples, the religious leaders of the day, and of course John the Baptist.

Jesus tells his disciples when they ask if Elijah had returned that he had.  John was that person that came to prepare the way.  John himself tells his disciples that he had to become less and Jesus had to become more.  John told Jesus he didn’t need to be baptizing him.  John had a clear picture of who Jesus was when he said that he wasn’t worthy to latch his sandals…and yet.

Luke 7:19-22 (MSG)
¹⁹ He sent two of them to the Master to ask the question, "Are you the One we've been expecting, or are we still waiting?"
²⁰ The men showed up before Jesus and said, "John the Baptizer sent us to ask you, 'Are you the One we've been expecting, or are we still waiting?' "
²¹ In the next two or three hours Jesus healed many from diseases, distress, and evil spirits. To many of the blind he gave the gift of sight.
²² Then he gave his answer: "Go back and tell John what you have just seen and heard: The blind see, The lame walk, Lepers are cleansed, The deaf hear, The dead are raised, The wretched of the earth have God's salvation hospitality extended to them.

Even though John knew who Jesus was, he still had questions, he still wondered, there was a hint of doubt.  The difference between what John did and what many of us do is not that hard to find.  When John had doubts he didn’t let them fester, he didn’t go and ask people who he knew would tell him what he wanted to hear, or people that he knew had doubts.  He went strait to the source.  When John needed to have his doubts eased he asked The Master to ease them.

The best part is Jesus did that,  He didn’t get angry at John and say to the men John sent tell John he needs to have a little faith, He didn’t yell at John or send a message of condemnation.  Far from it.  He showed the men sent who he was and told them to report back to John all that they had seen. Jesus doesn’t stop there though.  He goes on in the text to talk about John in a positive light.  To lift John’s faith up as an example to the people around him.

Doubt is not the problem, it’s what we do with the doubt that’s the problem.  Let it seep deep into our bones, fail to ask the questions, or press into God and His word, look for other people who will validate our doubt, those are the times that we fall, those are the times that doubt becomes a problem because those are the times that we take our eyes off the one we say we have our faith in.  Those are the times that we stray.

See you around the blog...

The question is?

What makes a person do the things that they do?  J and I have been watching Catfish, we started with the movie the other night and then have watched whatever episodes are up on HULU.  We like the show, I guess it’s true that everyone has a bit of the voyeur in them.

I have so many questions when watching this show.  Along with why do people do what they do, goes the following:

How deluded can a person be?

How in the world could someone have a relationship based solely on text messages and instant messaging?

Does anyone realize the power of Photoshop?

How can you be so gullible?

How twisted are you?

How can you be so mean?

What were you thinking?

When we watch the show I tend to look over at J and have a huge feeling of relief.  I have the person that I want to spend my life with.  The cool thing is I have now spent more of my life with her than I have with my parents and those days and years will continue to grow.  I am one of the lucky few.  I realize this of course, every day.  Still I have to admit that I’m glad I’m not out there.  I am glad I don’t have to navigate the dating pool today.  I am so glad to not have to worry about who’s real on Facebook and who’s not.  I realize a few things.  We didn’t always have smart phones, and yet I am not really sure what we would do without them at this point.  They have become an integral part of our life.  We use them for everything and it’s much easier to text each other, mainly because then I don’t have to try and remember what she told me to get, as long as my phone is charged I can just look down and say, “Oh yea, I was supposed to get Oranges too.” 

I feel bad for people today in some ways.  There really is no mystery when it comes to a person any more, no need to get to know them by talking to them, you can just Google them or find them on Facebook, and even if they are not who they say they are on any number of networking sites do a little bit more digging and you can find out who they really are.   

I watch these people who have built up entire lives with a person even if they are thousands of miles apart, and I feel bad for them. They are missing out on so much.  When your first date consists a pre-arranged Skype session there’s a problem.  When the level of intimacy and the flirting consists of  text messages instant messaging and sexting there, at least to me, has to be a disconnect.  If the person that I “love” lives a thousand miles away and the only contact I have with them comes from a few pictures and some email I am missing out on the best part of getting to know someone. 

I will never forget the first time J held my hand…We had come back from Christmas Break and were at North side Assembly in Lakeland for a Sunday evening service no less.  It just happened. I was zinging the rest of the night, shoot I still zing when she reaches over and grabs my hand. 

I guess what it means, at least to me, is that we were designed for relationship and we were designed for physical interaction and affirmation.  I don’t really see that as possible when all you have is Facebook and text messages.

I am so glad that I found J and J found me before all of these things got in the way, because that really is what I think they do.  They get in the way of a process that should be full of mystery, and excitement, and nervousness.  It’s a rite of passage, or at least it should be.

My warm fuzzy!

I have been doing independent contract work with a company in the area fixing computers, setting up networks, and helping people know how to make their computers work.  I think one of the things that interests me the most in this whole situation is the age of the people that I am working with. Most of them are on the other side of the hill, in fact, if I dare say so, I would have to say that some of them are fairly close to no more hill left.

Sometimes the things that they ask me to do are funny, sometimes finding the problems they have gotten themselves into is just plain frustrating.  If they have animals I get to deal with things like this lady’s dog the other day sitting behind me while I was working, incessantly licking his KONG toy, not really the most enjoyable thing to hear while trying to install all of the software this lady thought she would need and then some.

I have had some really great experiences, and some really frustrating ones.  I am enjoying the time frame, it works out well and allows us not to have to get a sitter,  I have even been able to share my faith, in a non threatening way, and have enjoyed finding that people were not totally turned off by a Christ follower.

Anyway the other night this one thing happened and it has been my warm fuzzy for quite a while now.  I have had the privilege of being an integral part of all three of my daughters early years.  All three of them have spent time in a church office, they have all spent the first 6 months to a year with me in the mornings.  Amberly even went to Men’s breakfasts when we were in New Castle,  she would sit in her carrier and we would talk and eat and pray, it was really cool.  I love this opportunity, the chance to be in my daughters lives in a way that many dads don’t get to have.

If you were to divide my heart into pieces it would look something like this, now keep in mind that it’s hard to divide a heart…



J’s letter is bigger because well lets face it, she has the biggest chunck of my heart, and as I said it’s hard to divide a heart so getting the girls portions even was pretty close to impossible.  I hope everyone realizes as well that my relationship with God comes first.  I would love to be able to tell you that it always has, but I’m human and there have been times when that has not been the case.

Anyway the four people in that very amateurish picture represent my warm fuzzies, but I have to tell you that each of them fills that segment in different ways.

J: The fact that she has put up with me all these years and still loves me is, well pretty amazing,  having said that the warm fuzzy from J comes from those times when she holds my hand, or snuggles up with me all on her own.

Amberly:  Her spirit and willingness to try things is amazing. The warm fuzzy I get from her comes from her attempting to embrace everything I like; she has sat in on full blown role playing games with me pen and paper style mind you, she rides all the rides, she likes the movies I like, but the biggest warm fuzzy I have gotten from her lately was looking at the way she signed her signature on a paper for school. Yes, that’s right, she attempted to match my scribble and did a pretty good job, even emulating the"A" I use.

Zoey:  Has always been my snuggler, she will crawl up next to me given the chance and just snuggle and tell me she loves me and when I have to work late in the evening, well the other day says it all; “I don’t like it when you work late, I miss you.”

Lil Jo:  The other night after a long afternoon of work, I came up to the front door, stuck my key in the lock and opened it.  There was this huge scream and Jo just ran to the door with all the speed a 15 month old can muster she was so excited that I was home.  Forget the fact that she had been with me throughout the whole day, she was happy that I was home.  She ran to me and wanted me to pick her up.  Of course I did so.

So there you have it.  My warm fuzzies.  I may get frustrated with the girls.  I may lose it when they don’t flush the toilet, or when I have spent the entire day cleaning only to have it wrecked within 5 minutes of them being home, but on balance.  The warm fuzzies that I get from my family far outweigh the frustrations.  I think I’ll keep them, and I’m reasonably sure they plan on keeping me.

What in the world

Sometimes my blog really just writes itself.  I sit down after reading and praying and things flow, or there is some great visual that I see that just makes the words stream from my fingertips. 

Sometimes it’s a struggle to figure out what to write, the interesting thing is that many times when that happens I really want to write.  I sit down and open up the editor and stare at the this big blank expanse and feel my brain telling me to get to it, to put my hands to the keys and write something already.  The funny thing is when this happens I’ll leave the editor up and come up with all sorts of reasons to get up from the chair and do something real quick.  Sometimes I’ll think that I need to warm up my coffee, or change the music, or I’ll load the dishwasher real quick.  Usually when I do sit down to write it’s when I have put Jo down for a nap, a process that can last from 20 minutes to 3 hours.  When this happens of course I use her as an excuse as well, checking in on her to make sure she is okay or still asleep or whatever. 

It’s not like I have nothing to write about.  I am reading in Mark and almost finished with Paul.  I spent yesterday listening to all sorts of great music, I even thought at the time of a few really cool blogs that would come from any number of the songs I heard,  I have seen some interesting things as well, including 2 vultures eating a deer in the middle of Muddy Branch the other day, surely that should have garnered something blog worthy right?

Oh look my coffee cup is empty… and I’m back of course in addition to making a cup of earl grey hot, I remembered that I had to bake some bread, so I put that together and it’s rising on the back of the stove. 

I guess the whole thing makes me wonder.  How I can feel this need to write, and yet I can’t always get anything deep and meaningful out every time I do.  Then it hit me.  Sometimes I don’t really need deep and meaningful, sometimes light and fluffy works too.  It’s the writing that’s the important thing right? 

As I read through Paul's letters sometimes I wonder different things that relate directly to what I’m talking about.  I wonder if Paul ever called over whoever was listening to him dictate on any given day and I wonder if he said.  Hey I feel a need to write lets write a letter, then all of a sudden he thought of all the other things there were to do or if he got off track or if there really wasn’t anything pressing to say he just wanted to do the deed of writing, to have someone else hear or see what was going on in his brain…in his life. 

Don’t get me wrong,  I don’t begin to place myself on the same level as Paul, far from it, but he was a person just like I am, he did a lot of his teaching and preaching through the written word.  I do ALL of my preaching through the written word at this point.  I can say that it’s not nearly as satisfying as it could be or should be, and every once in a while I am positive that J wants me to actually preach somewhere, mainly because she has to bear the brunt of living with someone called to be a pastor, without a congregation.  She will even say, “you really need to get to preach soon.” 

I wish I had the answers to this.  I wish I had the ability to just make a church want me, or all of a sudden have a huge group of friends who decide that there is a need for VERITAS. I ask God to show me or lead me or whatever it is he is doing, and I get these glimpses of possibilities.  They happen and I get a little bit excited only to have them fall apart.  I don’t like that part of life, the waiting, the believing the hoping.  It gets harder and harder to do. 

So I open up my laptop and I sit down and decide I need to write and then I do all the other things that “need” to be done because ultimately I end up feeling like it’s never going to happen, and that I’m going to be relegated to putting out the things that are in my heart and mind and that come from my time of study and observation on this blog.

So I wonder, what’s next, I pray for it, I ask for the grace to be able to wait and for the willingness when the time comes, and I write because that’s all that’s left at this point.  

Lets be clear…

Okay so the other night a friend of mine on Facebook wondered if I was still doing the Kids and Family ministries thing at this church that I was part time at.  She wasn’t sure because she hadn’t really read about it on my blog. 

My reply was that I didn’t really deem the church blog worthy, mainly because I knew sometime in September or October that things were not going to last much longer.  I had some serious concerns that were never really answered in a positive way.

As a one time pastor who has begged God to take away the calling that he placed on my life all those years ago, and who in fact continues to do so off and on as they days go by. I have always known certain things.  I have understood what it means to have a relationship with Christ. 

Matthew 28:19 (NLT)
¹⁹ Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

This verse really doesn’t seem like rocket science to me, so I would like to ask a question of all of you. 

What does it mean to lead someone into a relationship with Christ? 

This was just one of the questions that presented itself.  There were social issues, spiritual issues, and very real personality conflicts.  Change was talked about but not really wanted or needed. 

All of these things coupled with my really not understanding or being able to articulate what I felt the church did well went to prove the fact that I really wasn’t a good fit, and while I miss aspects of ministry there, I don’t miss the place at all.  I enjoyed getting to know some of the people, and others well you never like or will like everyone. 

I am sure I made many people uncomfortable, I am sure that my desire to move things into new directions really was frightening,  I am also sure that there are some things that I am and some things that I am not, and one of the things that I am most defiantly not is Methodist, at least not that particular flavor of Methodist.

Here’s the thing,  some of the things that the Methodist movement does well, I can really be on board with.  There is a real sense of the importance of the social aspect of the Gospel at work in the Methodist church, and I have come to realize that many churches today, really could use a good old dose of reaching out to their fellow man or woman regardless of the bottom line, or what it gets your particular church. 

Many churches today seem to think they are an integral part of the work of salvation.  I am not sure why but for whatever reason we have placed our programs, and thoughts, our style, music, sermons all of those things into the mx in a way that they just don’t fit.  Don’t get me wrong, all of these things are important, they are needed, the church is needed.  God tells us not to try and go it alone, however somewhere along the line the church, especially today’s evangelical movement has developed this idea that salvation has contingencies,  you have to look right, act right, be right.  You have to come to the front and make this proclamation in front of the body of believers.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very important for a new Christ follower to tell someone that they have made a decision to walk with God.  To live and move and have their being in Him.  Not telling someone makes me suspect of weather they even have, but it seems to me that it makes more sense to make that profession to someone that you know, someone you have relationship with.  That means so much more than a bunch of people you don’t know. 

I guess what I’m saying is the Methodist church gets the importance of the social side of things, but from what I experienced recently the spiritual side, was not really up to the standards that J and I have set for our family, and trying to make those things happen in this particular church didn’t really work out. 

So there it is, a bit of an explanation as to why we are no longer working at the church we were at, and why I didn’t really deem it blog worthy, it was an educational experience, and there are people I met that I have respect and even fond memories of, however I do not miss the rest of it…

Now we wait, and pray and remain open…